As an animal lover and vegan, it's very important to me to offer vegan and cruelty-free options to my clients while using high-end products. A lot of salons advertise as "cruelty-free" or "organic" but after some research, I often found that the polishes they are using are NOT cruelty-free! I want to be 100% transparent with what kind of products I use. All of my polishes are VEGAN (If you’d like to learn more about what that means, please keep reading).
All of the products I use are verified cruelty-free in the United States. Some companies sell their products in China which requires all imported beauty products to be tested on animals. Below is a list of products I use and if they are Vegan/Cruelty-Free and Big-5 free:
VEGAN/100% CRUELTY-FREE:
The Gel Bottle
Light Elegance
Apres Nail (Big-5 Free)
Bio Seaweed Gel (Big-5 Free)
Vetro
Kiara Sky
NCLA (7 Free)
Luminary Nail System
DND (Some exceptions I believe)
VEGAN/CRUELTY-FREE IN USA:
Presto
Kokoist
Leaf Gel
Young Nails
Feel free to ask me if you have any questions!
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
VEGAN:
The products does not use ANY animal derived products. I know, I know - there is no meat or milk used in polishes... But often, colors are achieved by using crushed beetles for a shimmery look, crushed lady bugs for a super bright red, fish scales to get a shiny glitter and shellac is also from an insect! I know we can have you leaving the salon with bangin’ nails without hurting any animals in the process. I use high-end professional salon products that are vegan and cruelty-free.
CRUELTY FREE:
Trust me, animal testing is heart-breaking. You are one Google Image search away from finding out! Animal testing is a very outdated and inhumane way to test beauty products and is totally unnecessary! All of the products I use are Cruelty-Free in the US and these will be identified as "CF" on my swatches. I wanted to make sure I was distinguishing the 2 different "cruelty-free" products to my customers. Salons usually advertise their products as cruelty-free even though those companies have retailers in China. All of those companies will NOT be labeled as Cruelty-Free on my swatches (their ingredients are vegan, but they potentially test on animals outside of the US).
BIG 5/BIG 10 FREE:
This means the product is free of all of these chemicals:
3-Free polish does not contain dibutyl phthalate, toluene or formaldehyde.
5-Free polish does not contain dibutyl phthalate, toluene, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin or camphor.
7-Free polish does not contain dibutyl phthalate, toluene, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, camphor, parabens or xylene.
10-Free polish does not contain formaldehyde, toluene, DBP, camphor, formaldehyde resin, xylene and don’t contain parabens, fragrances, phthalates, and animal ingredients.